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Having already read and thoroughly enjoyed Bell’s “Love Wins�� I approached this one with high expectations. In some respects he didn’t disappoint. On the plus side he begins from a perspective of Christian faith as a dynamic process lived through the whole of life, rather than a static set of truths to be accepted and held onto:

“The Christian faith is alive only when it is listening �� innovating, letting go of whatever has gotten in the way of Jesus and embracing whatever will help us to be more and more the people God wants us to be.��

He speaks of having “as many questions as answers�� about his faith, and about “contributing to the discussion�� rather than trying to provide definitive answers. So far I am wholeheartedly with him; I am with him in many of his questions, and with him in many of his answers.

For instance in questioning of a simplistic, literalist approach to scripture, which takes isolated texts lifted out of context and uses them to justify condemnations and exclusions of whole groups of people, he is clear and helpful:

“To take statements out of context and apply them today without first understanding their original context sucks the life right out of them. They aren’t isolated statements that float unattached, out in space. They aren’t first and foremost timeless truths.��

Rather he suggests that we should:

“…embrace the Bible as the wild, uncensored, passionate account it is of people experiencing the living God.
Doubting the one true God
Wrestling with, arguing with, getting angry with, reconciling with, loving, worshipping, thanking, following the one who gives us everything.��

In a similar manner he discusses quite a wide-ranging selection of other issues.

He has an ability to sum up constructive views of scripture in succinct and challenging little sentences. E.g.:

“For Jesus, the question wasn’t ‘How do I get into heaven? But how do I bring heaven here?��

Or

“Christian is a great noun and a poor adjective.��

So far, so good. The style and content is not that of a theologian or scriptural scholar, it is the work of a preacher and each section is written like the transcript of an extended sermon. In many places this is effective and helpful.

However, there are considerable short-comings to the book. At a less important level there is a jarring quality in the tone, in the sense that he adopts a ‘cool�� or ‘hip�� way (or whatever the current phrase is for such speak �� afraid I show my age here). Such assumed tones always leave me with some suspicion, maybe unjustly so, that at least some of the content is assumed and manipulated to target an imagined audience.

There are also a number of passages in the book that could have been more effective if he had been far more succinct. For instance he writes about a meal with friends and writes a rather rambling long paragraph regarding his response to his friends;

“I was looking around the table at my wife, whom I just adore; our friend Shauna, who may be one of the best story-tellers on the planet; Tom whom I could take a bullet for �� etc, etc.��

He does have the grace to admit it sounds like something out of a greetings card (one that would rapidly get put back on the shelf by most people, I think), but what is the point? He then leads to this reasonable suggestion:

“Ordinary moments in ordinary settings that all of a sudden become infused with something else. With meaning. Significance. Hope.��

But why the lengthy baloney first?

More seriously his style of argument often lacks precision and solid basis. Many of his statements appear to be plucked out of the air with no supportive evidence provided.

On occasions when he does provide ‘evidence�� the reasoning behind it can be suspect to say the least. One bizarre little example of this:

“A city is more advanced, more complicated than a garden. If a garden is developed and managed and cared for, it is eventually going to turn into a city.��

What?! In Biblical imagery we may find near the beginning of Genesis a garden & at the end Revelation an eternal city, but this isn’t related to symbolic imagery of the bible, nor is it related to any aspect of history. What is the man on about?

He was prone to making some generalised statements which flew in the face of basic evidence. Discussing the early Christian communities he suggests:

“These Christians made sure everybody in their midst had enough to eat. They made sure everybody was able to pay their bills. They made sure there was enough to go around��

This may be the ideal, but Paul’s letters sent to these very same communities are constantly stressing those qualities alongside the failure of those communities to live up to them.

Overall I enjoyed the book. Like his “Love Wins�� it very positive and encouraging in its approach to faith. At its best it put forward very constructive ideas about what a live Christian faith and community should be like. However, the flaws in style and content
reduced the effectiveness of his message.